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Development benefits of biogas exceed expectations, new report Gold Standard found

June 19, 2019

The benefits of improved cooking solutions, such as biogas, exceed earlier presumptions, new study commissioned by Gold Standard found. The study conducted by Vivid Economics calculates economic values of social and development benefits from Gold Standard certified cooking projects, among which the Hivos’ biogas programs.

Value created with biogas

The study finds that for every carbon credit issued from a clean cookstove project, $267 in economic value is created. For domestic biogas projects, the average value created is $464. For biogas the highest value is created by health impact and improved livelihoods, including time savings of women (view the value created by the Hivos domestic biogas programme Kenya).

Average value created per carbon credit issued from biogas projects

Source: Gold Standard

The net benefit of Gold Standard’s improved cooking solutions portfolio adds up to $2.6 billion per year. To date, $11.6 billion over the total project lifetime.

Next to comparing technology and fuels, the study also dis-aggregates between regions and introduces additional improvements for greater specificity.

Attracting more investors

As such, the report supports ongoing efforts to deploy best available cooking technologies at scale by providing a more complete picture of monetary benefits and sheds light on the value that investors create through supporting improved cooking solutions in a bid to attract more capital to these projects.

The outcome of the study are encouraging says Harry Clemens, program manager Hivos Carbon Credits program. He adds “the report supports something we have already witnessed in our programs, namely that biogas has multiple development benefits, but now also make the correlation tangible. This can surely help us attracting financiers. We are ready to speed up dissemination of biogas digesters in Africa and South East Asia if buyers are willing to pay real value for carbon credits.”